Maurice Sendak fantasized about killing Bush, Cheney, and their wives in a suicide bombing

Maurice Sendak died last month at the age of 83, and I was sad because I’ve loved Where the Wild Things Are since I was a child. Now he’s given me another reason to be sad.

Last October, Sendak was interviewed by Gary Groth of The Comics Journal. And unfortunately, he said this:

SENDAK: Bush was president, I thought, “Be brave. Tie a bomb to your shirt. Insist on going to the White House. And I wanna have a big hug with the vice president, definitely. And his wife, and the president, and his wife, and anybody else that can fit into the love hug.”

GROTH: A group hug.

SENDAK: And then we’ll blow ourselves up, and I’d be a hero. [Groth laughs.] To hell with the kiddie books. He killed Bush. He killed the vice president. Oh my God.

GROTH: I would have been willing to forgo this interview. [Sendak laughs.]

SENDAK: You would have forgotten about it. It would have been a very brave and wonderful thing. But I didn’t do it; I didn’t do it.

Well, that ought to sell a few books posthumously, among a certain segment of his audience.